Cloud Recess atmosphere was cheerfully gloomy as usual. The cherry blossom petals lurked in the air, the soft sunrays were percolating through the clear sky and gleaming upon the serene quarters of the eternal tranquil Gusu Lan residence. Despite the presence of nature's exuberance, no sound rang in the entire complex. Even the sound of a green leaf running over the wooden floor could be heard from the distance.

It was an usual day in Cloud Recess where the Lan disciples were studying, being driven by the rule of their morning routine according to which they have to study for five hours straight in the morning. In ' Orchard Room', Lan Qiren was teaching the guest disciples who had come to be imparted with the famous Gusu Lan's classes.

Right outside the quarters, in the huge green-coveted, flushed, adorned by magnolia and sakura petals and few perky leaves, was lying an extensive and shy, beamed garden of Yunshen, veiled by the elegance of a feminine beauty. Warmth of the shy sunrays was soul soothing, as the air was celebrating the grand arrival of the lively spring.

Amid the lushes of tiny green strings smeared on the soft soil, is lying a youth in a pristine snow-white, blue cloud motifs embellished robes, the elegance of which was beaming under the kissing touches of the soft gleaming sunrays. The slender body with bright fair white skin, sharp, brilliant almond shaped large gleeful grey eyes, sharp nose, plush and flushed red lips, long muscular hands spread on either sides of his torso - wide white sleeves giving them resemblance to the wings of a fair dove, was lying supine. The fine black refined border tracing his eyes were conspicuous as he was looking at the soft beams - trying to absorb its warmth through his deep, bright grey orbs.

A sweet smile was painted on his face and lips, as he rejoiced the mollifying warmth of the sunrays, and the raw scent of the soft young moist grasses and the occasional gushes of scented wind that brings aroma of the diverse species of scented flowers. If he were a bee, he would have drifted along the air, trail that odour, untill he lands on the soft hued petals that were waiting for him to be sucked by.

If he were a gush of wind, he would have reigned above this world - unbound, untied, emancipated, and manumitted, from the chains of this worldly soil, that is drenched by the unleashed worldly desires of the mortal hearts. But no, he is still a human of flesh, blood and a mere mortal heart and a body, and his buoyant mind and heart are constricted by the shackles of traditional thoughts and beliefs.

The brain cells lurking over this ancient soil are enslaved; hegemonized to the patriarch that reigns in the form of old beliefs; the beliefs that are as old as the digested fish of the stomach of an extinct benthic predator that is now sleeping over the rocky bed of the tranquil heavens - has been sleeping for thousands of years for now.

Wei Wuxian was again punished by the old master Lan, for 'going against nature'. The old man argued - ' We were created to live in nature, not to conquer it. Oppose nature, and you shall be doomed'.

The unruly Wei Wuxian's argument was - 'But master, human beings have sustained this long because they have explored, and still exploring nature. The herbalists experiments on plants, and then only the apt cure for infection, or kidney stone is obtained. Nor all experiments are flouting the natural order. We were born to explore things aren't we? How could we discover the unknown unless we divert from the path that has been already rode by thousands of minds? '

The old man got irked by the counter back, and started flaring his nose as the manifestation of his blooming wrath, provoked by the doughty confrontation and resolute approach of the most unruly student, who was looking at him confidently, without shaking his gaze for a lone moment.

The argument between this famous teacher-pupil pair got prolonged for few moments and the series of events led to the pupil being punished with the rewriting of the rules three times, which he would have to complete within a week. For then, the incredulous, unruly, unscrupulous disciple was being banished from the glorious class of none other than the esteemed Lan Laoshi. However, the said disciple was more than happy to have finally been freed from the boring, tedious class, and got the chance to rejoice the open sky at least for some moment. Freedom from those same old, used, senile words - which, the enslaved minds had been engraving in their minds and reciting like a parrot.

He started caressing the soft grasses, feeling the tingling sweet sensation against his palm. The raw aroma of the grasses started drifting his body into an Adobe of lazy comfort and langour, and his entire soul was soothed by the sweet gushes of winds and the shadows of fleecy pieces of cottony clouds that were playing around the clear azure sky.

The shadows of the clouds, and the bright sunrays were intermittently dancing across his frame, making the lean yet tall, muscular, and well-framed supine body almost mingle and dissolve along the grasses and the mirthful Gusu spring.

The lullaby of the wooshing air lulled him slowly into the drifting world of tumultuous dreamland, where you create your own world, while your body rejoices the leisure of being finally lend with repose. Basking the comfort of the lukewarm, pleasing and winsome spring, he fell asleep amid the grass laden soil.

An unknown sensation was felt on his sharp-cut chiseled face, as few long fingers were caressing his satin skin. The slender touch traced along his red lips, the sides of his nose, his closed eyelids, his sharp jaw line, his fair cheeks... He endured the strange touch, waiting for the next move of the alien hand.

Thee decision was regretted.

The fiddly hands started fondling with his Adam's apple, and the impish fingers started descending down his throat towards the front hem of his robe. Three wilful fingers found their way inside the robe, and started fondling with the smooth toned skin on his chest.

Wei Wuxian shot open his eyes, and thwarted the hand away without even looking at whoever the winsome person was. He sat up straight like a spring and revolved his head, eyes laden by a confused glare and face by a funny expression, as if he is making fun of the man - mocking the childish act of playing with a sleeping man in an obscene manner.

He turned around to look at whoever the indecorous person was, and his heart beat stopped.

Right before him, over the flushed layer of virid grassy soil, is lying a frame of pure elegance, with his body saddled on one side over the ground, with his right palm supporting his head and the elbow supporting his body. His right leg was propped up. Handsome face was embellished by a layer of virility and leisurely confidence. Tall and lean-muscled body, sharp features, long legs and hands; his face was sharp and chiseled, with a lazy smile adorning his red lips.

There was a dark, eldritch aura looping around him, creating a menacing air hanging around the handsome man. But his leisurely small smile swept away the stratified menace into a fading danger, leaving a faint uncanny ambience lurking around him. His large almond shaped, finely traced grey eyes had a certain depth in them, the depth which will lead you to a dark unknown abyss once you start drowning in them. The darkness in his eyes was transcending the bright grey hue, as he was staring at Wei Wuxian with a chilling gaze.

The mysterious man was wearing black robes, with red hem tracing along the borders. His long, silky and sheening hair was held into a half ponytail that was tied at the back. A long crimson ribbon was hanging like a neat bloody stream, and the rest of the hair strands mingled with the ribbon, cascaded down his back and neck, with few hanging over his hand. The hair and the ribbon was swaying intermittently along the wafts of the winds.

A black, beautifully decorated flute with intricate pattern designs, was dangling from his waist, and a red tassel was streaming down from one of its end.

Wei Wuxian stared at the man who was gazing him with a stare so dark and piercing, that it almost bore through his soul. But still he couldn't shift his gaze even an inch, given that the other man's gaze was almost burning.

The man lying in front of him leisurely, looks exactly like him! Not truly exactly like him, but a picturisation of a grown up version of him, about in his mid 20s. Same face, same frame, only an older version of himself was staring at him, with a dark veil shrouding the underlying glee of the gloomily exuberant man's eyes. The sculpture of the man's face though matched with him, but that hollow face was pale, hollow, burdened; layered heaviness of colossal onus was concealed under the eerily calm and frozen face.

The body though well-sculptored, was as skinny as a log, and blue and purple veins could be seen protruding out of his white, pale skin of hands and neck. Though a man of blood and flesh, and having astoundingly resemblance to Wei Wuxian, he possessed nothing of the youthful and exuberant Wei Wuxian's warmth of healthy, beaming ebullience and fresh glow of youth.

Wei Wuxian stared at the man with stupefication looping around his mind. For a certain reason, he was not intimidated, but he froze with a sense of confustication and an erry sensation clogging in his heart and mind.

The strange man, who was apparently his older self, stared at him with that eerily lazy smile of his, eyes and his entire being, being held by the hands of a sudden cold, shivery darkness; as if he has been drenched in a sudden dousing mysterious energy that is very unknown to the common cultivation world.

"Who are you?" Wei Wuxian asked cautiously, with voice containing eagerness, a sense of apprehension was evident in his unusual shrill and sharp voice, the pitch of which has must risen up from the mystification. He swiftly took out Suibian, and pointed it at the other man's throat. A slight misplacement of the sword tip, its sharp blade shall slit through the soft, pale skin.

But instead of getting intimidated, the other man just stretched his lips further into a lips into a crescent smile, and for the first time since he saw the man, Wei Wuxian saw a glint of spark in those deep, doleful eyes.

Wei Wuxian slanted the tip of his sword so that the sharp glaring blade could constrict the mysteriously, un-menacingly, sinister man. But the man was more than confident, and showed not even a scintilla of being frightened. Instead, he ran the leathery skin of his thumb along the sharp and shining edge of Suibian, smearing the serrated edge with the redness of the crimson blood. Few drops of scarlet trickled down the entire frame of the sword, along the hilt, and then on the grass, getting lost and dissolved within the soil.

A breezy chuckle rang in the scented air, its sweetness and exult surpassing the sweetness of the aromatic winds laden with the tens of scents of fresh flower petals.

"Suibian, are you going to hurt your owner? Or already forgotten me hmm?" The voice was smooth and breezy, almost intoxicating. Wei Wuxian rejoiced the relishing feeling of the bass, deep, heavy voice, that vibrated in his ear like a tuning music.

"What are you blabbering? I am Suibian's owner. And who are you? How did you come here? And why do you look like me? What magic spell did you use man? Tell me too. " Wei Wuxian blethered out the questions like a spring of curiousity laden words, flowing without restraint.

Wei Wuxian was amused. Not scared or dreaded, but amused. He has read numerous books on cultivation, and at such a young age, has absorbed quite a lot about cultivation. But how to make yourself look like someone's older self... It was not only unheard of, but also seems utterly impossible. The mysterious man seemed like a challenge to break through, and who was he to deny a challenge?

"I am you Wei Ying... Look into my eyes." The deep, voice beckoned him to look at those dark abyssal eyes, where Wei Wuxian drowned in the moment he laid his eyes in the gloomy yet sparkling grey orbs. There are so many words being loudly spoken in those eyes, but still so hushed that they could barely reach an eardrum.

Suibian was still lying in the air close to the pale neck, but at a distance safe enough to not to slash through the white skin. After swimming in those eyes for a prolonged moment, Wei Wuxian felt imbibed, as if drunk by the dousing effect of those tinkling emotions.

Suddenly, the mysterious man raised his hand, and Wei Wuxian became cautious; he tightened his hold on his spiritual sword. The other man laid his larger, paler hand on his, and a shiver ran through Wei Wuxian's spine, emerging from the point of contact where the warm and the cold skin touched each other.

Wei Wuxian was about to retreat his hand, but the other tightened his grip around the younger's pearly hand, stealthily sneaking out the sword from its hold. Only after three seconds could Wei Wuxian catch hold of the situation, and was about to take back his sword, when sharp blade of Suibian suddenly landed on the skin of his neck softly, like touch of a cotton ball.

Wei Wuxian froze.

"W-what are you doing? Put my sword down. Hey hey Suibian, what are you doing in his hand, come back to your case. It's my command." Suibian was shaking slightly, as if indecisive about what to do.

This was a confounding thing. Even if any other person holds a spiritual sword, that person would never be able to hold it for more than a second if it's master commands it to either come back, or to finish any errand.

The man started caressing Suibian's warm hilt that was heated by the warmth of its master's hand. A spiritual sword should act violently in any other person's hand if it feels that the said person is a danger to its master, but Suibian looked as obedient as a child in the Wei Wuxian's apparently look-alike's hold.

Mortal body doesn't matter to spiritual tools; only that matters are soul and the core. There is no chance that Suibian was confused about the identify of his master.

"Suibian... Nice to meet you again. Hope you still remember your master. Did you miss me? I have failed you didn't I? " His tone was solemn and dusted by thousand particles of dole and dismal, as a shaky breath escaped his throat, something flickering through his eyes that were almost at the verge of glistening with moisture.

Suibian stilled in the man's hand, as if it is lamenting too - for loosing it's master.

Wei Wuxian frowned.

"Aye Suibian. What's wrong with you? I am your master. Have you gone insane?" Wei Wuxian scolded his sword. The spirit of the sword visibly mellowed down, being admonished by its master, as its blade slided down, with a sense of bowing down its head.

The other man suddenly retreated Suibian, and placed its other end gently on his other palm, caressing its blade and hilt with affection so vivid in his touch and those grey eyes, that for a moment anyone would be convinced that the sword belongs to that intruder. Most importantly, the delicate affection in those eyes resembles the same gleam of affection that Wei Wuxian beholds while looking at his sword.

Suibian was as obedient as a faithful being in the man's hand, visibly relishing the love and affection it was receiving from its apparent and so-called 'master'. A sense of possessiveness reigned over Wei Wuxian. Why is his sword being so compatible with a stranger?

"Hey you, give back my sword. " Wei Wuxian demanded.

"Take it from me yourself. " The elegantly pale man said with a tint of mockery, as his beautiful and brilliantly sharp and sparkling eyes raised up to stare at Wei Wuxian amusingly.

At this moment, Wei Wuxian realised that he was standing bare handed, and was so engrossed in absorbing the delicate conduction of affection between his sword and the other man, that he almost forgot about running to Master Lan and complain about the mystifying trespasser who looks like him, apparently his dopplehanger. He could have long ago dueled with the man who seems powerful and authoritative despite the residence of a fade lassitude in his frame, and banish him out from the place after teaching him a good lesson.

But since fighting was prohibited in Yunshen, he had to push the thoughts away, and bear on with the trifility of time a little longer. Over that, the other man seems to be of no danger, apart from the ribald behavior meted to him in an almost obscene way.

Without pondering over how unscrupulous it was of him to not to snatch his sword away from the other man, he surged forward to grab his Suibian. However, as he stooped down and put his hand on the remaining exposed portion of Suibian's hilt - sliding past the other man's thinner and paler hand, his arm was grabbed, and a sheer force pulled him, making him clash against a firm chest.

But he is a trained martial artist, and a strong cultivator, and not a random soul who shall get frightened by a simple attack by a random mysterious trespasser. He pressed the tip of his thumb on the man's neck stealthily, and the iron hand that was holding his arm stiffed, followed by the stillness in the entire frame of the still-pond-calm man's body.

For a moment, Wei Wuxian thought that he has easily escaped the grab of this apparently interesting man, but very soon he realised that he was wrong.